Cental Catholic taking advantage of second season

It has been a while since Central Catholic has reached the second week of the boys basketball tournament. The last time the Crusaders made it this far was in 2006, when they were in the Division III district at Wooster.

By Chris Easterling

Times Reporter

By Chris Easterling

Posted Mar. 5, 2013 at 12:01 AM
Updated Mar 5, 2013 at 5:22 AM

By Chris Easterling

Posted Mar. 5, 2013 at 12:01 AM
Updated Mar 5, 2013 at 5:22 AM

PERRY TWP.

It has been a while since Central Catholic has reached the second week of the boys basketball tournament. The last time the Crusaders made it this far was in 2006, when they were in the Division III district at Wooster.

Now, some seven years later, Central Catholic is back in the district tournament. Instead of being at Wooster, this time it is the Division III district semifinal at Salem High School against Manchester tonight at 7:30.

At first glance, Central Catholic may not look like the kind of team to already have two postseason wins under its belt. At least, not when you look record-wise, where the Crusaders enter the game with a 7-17 record.

Two of those seven wins have come in the last week against East Palestine and Columbiana Crestview in the sectional tournament. But prior to those two wins, Central Catholic had been on an eight-game losing streak, a skid that carried back to the end of January.

However, even during that regular-season-closing stretch, Crusader coach Joe Pellegrene believed that he was watching a team that was coming into its own.

“The last time I checked, out of the 22 teams that we played, 15 of them had over 11 wins this season,” Pellegrene said Monday afternoon. “It was a pretty tough schedule, probably the toughest I’ve seen in the 11 years I’ve been at Central. Even though we were losing, especially at the end, I felt like we showed a steady improvement in a lot of areas. You could kind of see the kids gaining some confidence.”

Among the losses in that stretch were two nail-biters to Northwest, a three-point loss to Hillsdale and losses to Division I district participants in Perry and Youngstown East. Also among those losses was a 63-53 road defeat two weeks ago at the hands of Manchester — the same Manchester team the Crusaders are facing tonight.

That game was the next-to-last game for Central Catholic in the regular season. That is something Pellegrene believes can work in his team’s favor.

“The good thing about playing somebody that close is, it’s still kind of fresh in the kids’ minds,” Pellegrene said. “They know what they’ve seen. I think our kids have some confidence that they can get this game. They realize we didn’t play our best when we were up there. We played them tough on their home court, which is a tough place to play.”

Of course, the Central Catholic team Manchester is playing now is playing a lot better than it was just 14 days ago. And nowhere is that more evident than in the Crusaders’ offensive output in the two tournament wins.

During the regular season, Central Catholic only had one game where it scored more than 70 points. That was against a Fairless team that went 0-23. In each of the Crusaders’ first two games at Salem, they have posted matching 70-point outbursts.

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“In the tournament, we’ve been playing a little bit more up-tempo,” Pellegrene said. “We’ve been trying to get out and put some full-court pressure on some teams. I think it’s helped us to not get stagnant in the half-court. Even though we’re not turning teams over a ton, we’re getting the games played at a pace we would like to play it at.”

And getting the results the Crusaders would like to get on the scoreboard as well.